''Dissent'' is an

American Left The American Left consists of individuals and groups that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political and cultural institutions of the United States. Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and progressives ...

intellectual magazine edited by Natasha Lewis and Timothy Shenk and founded in 1954. The magazine is published by the

University of Pennsylvania Press The University of Pennsylvania Press (or Penn Press) is a university press affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The press was originally incorporated with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on 26 Ma ...

on behalf of the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas. Former co-editors include

Irving Howe Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Early years Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son o ...

Mitchell Cohen Mitchell Cohen is an author, essayist and critic, He is professor of political science at Baruch College of the City University of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center. From 1991 to 2009, he was co-editor of ''Dissent'', one of the United States' ...

, Michael Walzer, and David Marcus.

History

The magazine was established in 1954 by a group of

New York Intellectuals The New York Intellectuals were a group of American writers and literary critics based in New York City in the mid-20th century. They advocated left-wing politics but were also firmly anti-Stalinist. The group is known for having sought to integra ...

, which included

Lewis A. Coser Lewis Alfred Coser (27 November 1913 in Berlin – 8 July 2003 in Cambridge, Massachusetts) was a German-American sociologist, serving as the 66th president of the American Sociological Association in 1975. Biography Born in Berlin as Ludwig C ...

Rose Laub Coser Rose Laub Coser (born May 4, 1916 August 21, 1994) was a German-American sociologist, educator, and social justice activist. She taught sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1968 until her retirement in 1987. She wa ...

Norman Mailer Nachem Malech Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007), known by his pen name Norman Kingsley Mailer, was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, activist, filmmaker and actor. In a career spanning over six decades, Mailer ...

Henry Pachter Henry Pachter (1907–1980) was a Marxist intellectual and a libertarian socialist activist. Perhaps best known as an essayist, who dealt with both historical and political matters, he also authored a number of books on a variety of subjects. An ...

, and

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...

. Its co-founder and publisher for its first 15 years was University Place Book Shop owner Walter Goldwater. From its inception, ''Dissent''s politics deviated from the standard ideological positions of the left and right. Like ''

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

'', the ''

New Left Review The ''New Left Review'' is a British bimonthly journal covering world politics, economy, and culture, which was established in 1960. History Background As part of the British "New Left" a number of new journals emerged to carry commentary on m ...

'' and the French socialist magazine ''

Socialisme ou Barbarie Socialisme ou Barbarie () was a French-based radical libertarian socialist group of the post-World War II period whose name comes from a phrase which was misattributed to Friedrich Engels by Rosa Luxemburg in the '' Junius Pamphlet'', but which pr ...

'', ''Dissent'' sought to formulate a third position between the liberalism of the West and the communism of the East. Troubled by the rampant bureaucratization of both capitalist and communist society, ''Dissent'' was home to writers like

C. Wright Mills Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American Sociology, sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills published widely in both popular and intellectual journ ...

and

Paul Goodman Paul Goodman (1911–1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the arts, civil rights, decen ...

who identified themselves as radical democrats as well as to editors who like

and

Michael Harrington Edward Michael Harrington Jr. (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist. As a writer, he was perhaps best known as the author of '' The Other America''. Harrington was also a political activist, theorist, profess ...

more closely identified with

democratic socialism Democratic socialism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers' self- ...

. Over its seven decades in publication, it has also become an influential venue for social and cultural criticism, publishing political philosophers including Michael Walzer,

Cornel West Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. The grandson of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society an ...

, and Iris Marion Young, as well as novelists and poets such as

Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Da ...

and

Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation ...

. In the 1960s and 1970s, ''Dissent''s skepticism toward

Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...

revolutions and the culture of the

New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...

occasionally isolated it from student movements, but its commitment to both pluralist and egalitarian politics—in particular, when it came to social and civil rights issues—separated it from both the mainstream liberalism and the growing

neoconservative Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and coun ...

movement. Although ''Dissent'' still identifies with the democratic socialism of its founders, including

and

, its editors and contributors represent a broad spectrum of left positions: from the

Marxist humanism Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in an interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to huma ...

Marshall Berman Marshall Howard Berman (November 23, 1940–September 11, 2013) was an American philosopher and Marxist humanist writer. He was a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York and at the Graduate Center of the C ...

and

Leszek Kołakowski Leszek Kołakowski (; ; 23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his three-volume history, '' Main Currents of Marxism'' (1976 ...

, to the

social democratic Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...

revisionism of

Richard Rorty Richard McKay Rorty (October 4, 1931 – June 8, 2007) was an American philosopher. Educated at the University of Chicago and Yale University, he had strong interests and training in both the history of philosophy and in contemporary analytic phi ...

and Michael Walzer, and to the

radical feminism Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a Political radicalism, radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are al ...

Ellen Willis Ellen Jane Willis (December 14, 1941 – November 9, 2006) was an American left-wing political essayist, journalist, activist, feminist, and pop music critic. A 2014 collection of her essays, ''The Essential Ellen Willis,'' received the Nation ...

and

Seyla Benhabib Seyla Benhabib ( born September 9, 1950) is a Turkish-American philosopher. Seyla Benhabib is a senior research scholar and adjunct professor of law at Columbia Law School. She is also an affiliate faculty member in the Columbia University Depar ...

. In the 2010s, several of its younger editors identified themselves with the heterodox

Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

and visions of radical democracy espoused by

Occupy Wall Street Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was a protest Social movement, movement against economic inequality and the Campaign finance, influence of money in politics that began in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City's Financial District, Manhattan, Wall S ...

. Together with the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, ''Dissent'' announced its Archive project. It will be digitizing several short-lived

literary magazines A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters ...

, including ''Marxist Perspectives'' and ''democracy'', and providing access to them online. It also recently launched a labor podcast and introduced a new front of the book section dedicated to publishing

cultural criticism Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

.''Dissent'' website.
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References

External links

*
''Dissent'' at the University of Pennsylvania Press
{{Authority control 1954 establishments in New York City Political magazines published in the United States Quarterly magazines published in the United States English-language magazines Magazines established in 1954 Magazines published in Philadelphia New Left Socialism in the United States Socialist magazines University of Pennsylvania Press University of Pennsylvania Press academic journals

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links